Arctic listened to Strawberry talk as she looked at the Metro station about her. Seemed like a big gust of wind just picked up dust and flung it everywhere down here. At least most of it was settled. She'd raise a hoof to her right ear piece to try and find some local chatter, but all she got was mostly static and some random broadcast system spouting out Morse code. Maybe someone near her would hear the beeps coming from her ear, her attention back to the others she fixed her tie, taking a large calming breath to keep cool. Her breath visible with each exhale she gave from her nose. She'd adjust her clean black suit with a purple tie she wore. She gave her wings a little flap causing sparkles of frost to fall to the ground. She didn't like being underground, it reminded her of someplace. She thinking of things to say but held her tongue. She'd switch back to the normal M.O.M frequency.

Walking up to the blueprints to the Morale building she had been in a couple of times before. She cleared her mind as she closed her eyes before opening them, "How are we going to get in? Maintenance tunnel from metro or are we going.. up there." She questions looking at Strawberry with her candy cane like mane which looked like you could just nibble on it for that minty fresh taste. Flashes of candy cane went into her mind before she shoved those thoughts out.. 'Worlds blown up and I'm thinking of tasting somepony's mane.' she thought then said, "Are the hub's shields up?" She questions looking over the blueprints.

Strawberry looked to Pulse with a slight grimace, shaking her head at his statement before speaking. “Listen, we did retaliate, if you listened to Pinkie’s recording you will know that in the event of us being struck, we would’ve launched our own mega spells. I can assure you that I saw our magic being fired back before our silos were over run. Listen, all of you… as much as I hate to say it but I think our continent and hopefully the Zebra continent is in flames. You’ve seen it out there.. nothing but death and destruction. What we need to do is survive, more than anything we need to work together” She lowered her head and looked to the others who had joined them. Gear she worried about a little, he wasn’t no fighter, just an intern but still she and her little team would look after everyone hear.

“They’ll be no skirmishing into Zebraland and I doubt any Zebra’s would’ve infiltrated our lands other than those who had.. well. Already infiltrated us. By now those who had will have fled or died to their own devices. The Zebra’s are not problem anymore.. again, remember Pinkie’s orders. First thing first, security. Unless they launch a full scale invasion of our nation.. or what’s left of it then we fight back but now.. now we do what we must to survive” Hearing Aegle speak about the pills she nodded to the Hippogryth “That is a good point, anything to combat the taint or radiation, use now. I’m afraid Arctic, we’ll have to go from up top. I had…” She paused, looking a little pained. “Granny Biceps went down the tunnel down there” She pointed to a tunnel, it was collapsed, safe to say who ever this Granny Biceps were, had been crushed under that pile.

She didn’t speak again about what happened but continued to Arctic “as I said, we need to use the main entrance, that or the back. Only problem I see with the front is as I said, other ponies. We may have to kill and I’m sorry to say but we will have to kill other ponies If it comes to it. We’re all armed though, be it small arms or magical energy weapons like Light Breaker over there. We should be okay.. in terms of Shields” She paused and looked to Aegle again, not really wanting to say this in front of the young hippogryth but she did. “The shields never activated in time, Its why we believe our Director never made it out of there in time. Now we all may have had friends in this hub and as much as I’d like to bury everyone in there, we just don’t have the time. I just hope out Director felt nothing…”

Aegle would hear some crackling from Arctic’s ear bloom and over the old speaker system in the metro. (note, no-one else will hear this) “..make addictions go away *static* please, please please Twilight. *Static* I've done bad things Twilight, horrible bad things. And I've let the ponies of my ministry do even Worse. *static* make addictions go away static please, please please Twilight… *static* I want my friend back” (End of what Aegle hears) The static of the ear bloom and the metro speaker fell silent once again. Arctic on the other hoof would hear something else.

“Embrace her, embrace the Pink one’s glow, except the plague of happiness. It has been one month since the fires burned our cities. I, the new Director will hold the biggest party across Equestria, in her name!” and then static. The metro station seemed to groan, howls of wind filtered through the entrance way, sounding like the ghosts of the past. Strawberry furrowed a brow and pulled up her gas mask over her maw. “Masks on, Storm in brewing. Get your things and if there isn’t anything else, we’ll make haste”

"We may be divided
But of you all, I beg
To remember we're all hoofed
At the end of each leg"

Pulse frowned. This made no sense. Why would the zebras attack just to have themselves be wiped out? Did they really just hate ponies that much? The little unicorn sighed and put his gas mask on. He looked inside the small saddle bags to see if he had everything he needed which he did. He looked around with a sad expression. It seemed logic and tactics were irrelevant here but these ponies looked like they could use all the experienced gun fighters they could get and without strategy or a work bench that's all he was.

Gear frowns, but prepares himself, wrapping his coat a bit tighter around his body, and fastening the gas mask securely on his face, double checking it won't fall off. After this. He sighs. And nods his head. "Ready when you all are. I've unfortunately..." he stops mid sentence. "I'm prepared to defend myself." He says. "Just don't expect me to lead the pack. And if you have any of those to spare, one of those pills would be great."

"I am going to make a combustible lemon launcher to BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN!" -Cave Johnson.

The hippogryph looked between the ponies now once more, with her head lowered some as she worked with the gasmask placing it over her beak again. Having swallowed her pill and placing the mask over her again, seeing as though they had ignored her utterly she just lightly sighed again and went to follow Strawberry. She didn't much like these ponies, Pulse especially. He seemed... very headstrong. Very warmongering. He wanted to wage a war that wasn't coming. One that was over. It scared her. And it made her jittery. But she followed quietly, using her jacket to hide her wings the hippogryph would move as quietly as her claws and hooves could, gentle clopping and clicks as she moved with the others. Though she would skip a step when she heard Pinkie's voice through her the ear bloom, the hippogryph would freeze slightly, but continue after the others again. What was that? What had she just heard? What was that...? "Who're... the plague?"

Arctic's ear twitched as she listened in on what she picked up. "New ..Director, Pink glow?" She questions softly as she wondered what the hay this was about. A party? She looked into the metro tunnels as she took the guess taking maintenance was a no go from how the ceiling caved into tunnels about. Looking at the pill she gave it a look over before swallowing it down. "Alright.. Going up.." She says looking up at the ceiling then at the candy cane maned mare.. "Shields didn't go up? Could of been Sabotage?" She questions as she takes a mask and puts it on. With a mask blocking her mouth, she wouldn't be able to use her 1911 Colt. Yes she had a pistol on her with 3 spare mags in saddlebags. A battle saddle would prove to be useful for her since she was one of the fliers. Sadly she didn't come with one. She extended her wing as she looked at the feathers then looked down at the tunnel as the dust was lifted up. "Ready." She says folding in that wing and adjusted the mask a little bit making sure it was alright. Hopefully the filters weren't going to get damaged from her cold misty breath. Her breathing was very slow and steady as the icy mist came out of the one-way vents in the mask.

She looks over to Gris feeling she heard from her ear piece, "Plague of happiness.. Not sure what it means, but I'll say its bad." She says not to worried about it now. But she was going to keep her radio open for more transitions she could get a hold of. She looked back to the plans then looked at Pulse and Gear then over to Strawberry.

Strawberry looked among her group again, she was worried about them all. Even with all their training or lack of, this was a new Equestria and it was hell. Between their group, they had at least, including herself, three trained ponies. Strawberry, the body guard to Pinkie herself, Arctic the Pink whom worked as secret service for the ministry of morale and of course Pulse who was a field agent. Aegle was young, she may have been the daughter of one the most powerful gryphon, but she was still young and from how she nearly sprayed Strawberry to death back in the bunker, she needed some training. Gear on the other hoof, could be useful in other ways, they would need some to repairs in their travels, weapons would need to be serviced, robots, terminals would need to be hacked or built and gear could do this with the right training.

Strawberry would speak up about this to Gear with a comforting smile. “Listen, you keep our weapons in tidy shape, and we’ll keep you safe okay?” She continued though and looked to the others seeing that they were pretty much ready. “I’m afraid I cannot say if it was a sabotage or not, but it happened, and we cannot do anything about it” Over hearing Aegle and Arctic speak about the cult she had seen she sighed softly.

“I’m sorry to say but whomever this group is, were old ministry members. They took Pinkie’s words and made them.. words of, say the princesses. They believe Pinkie to be their new god. I don’t know too much about them but they are dangerous, but they survived the megaspell attack on Manehatten. Went crazy from taint... they…are” She had to pause to think of a way to describe them but she shuddered a little. “they are… melting. I don’t know what it is... but they are changing, and I think it’s effecting her brain. We may... we may have to get past them” She says with another sigh and moves up towards the entrance to the subway.

Levitating the blue prints over into her saddle bag and pulled out a magnum from the same saddlebags. It looked like it could take out someone’s head, good job Strawberry didn’t return fire on Aegle. “right, well, let’s get moving.” She wasn’t exactly excited her self about going to surface realm either, but it needed to be done. Looking around the metro station, you could see that any supplies the group had, was limited, a few cans of food, one gallon of water. Maybe some bits of straw for ponies to lay on but overall, the metro station was really under supplied.

She began to head up and if others followed, they'd be met by fire. The city of Manehatten, was burning, green fires flickering from buildings, from old chariots that had fallen when the megaspell hit. Any trees that littered the city was black and crumbling, pony corpses still lined the streets, some burnt and some even turned to green goop upon the floor. It was like hell on Equestria. Strawberry sighed and looked back to the others. “I know some of you have survived worse since this past month but... we can do it okay? I believe in us. Arctic, I, and Light breaker will take lead. Keep close to us and at the sign of trouble, those who can’t fight, get to cover okay?”

Strawberry Fields edit.jpg (156.25 KiB) Viewed 85 times

"We may be divided
But of you all, I beg
To remember we're all hoofed
At the end of each leg"

Pulse takes his modified 10mm pistol out of his saddle bag. The gun was silenced and had an extended magazine "If you two think you can handle yourselves I can take care of the group. Keep them safe" Pulse said as he followed strawberry "Unless you think there's something more useful I can do" He said looking at his gun. He hated this. Knowing next to nothing but he guessed everyone else did too. Nothing made sense and they were dealing in short term strategies. A sign of desperation. Not anyone's fault he knew but it angered him all the same because as much as he would try to play the role of the hardened soldier he was just as confused and scared as anyone else.